The sculptor Giannis Parmakelis was born in Heraklion in 1932.
He studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts under professors G. Moralis and G. Pappas (1952–1858). With a state scholarship, he continued his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under professor O. Zadkine (1961–1964).
He taught sculpture at the studio of G. Pappas, the Doxiadis Technological Institute, the Vacalo School, and the School of Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace (1968–1976).
His first solo exhibition was organized at the Zygos Gallery (1962), followed by numerous solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, most notably the Biennials of Alexandria (1965), São Paulo (1967), Venice (1970), and Budapest (1971), a group exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris (1980), the International Exhibition of Plastic Arts in Bucharest (1983), and retrospective exhibitions at the Pieridis Gallery (1992) and the Municipality of Kalamata (1994).
Starting with figurative sculpture, Parmakelis turned as early as the late 1960s toward abstract, expressionist, and surrealist anthropocentric compositions, utilizing metal as the primary medium to express his formative idiom.
He has been a member of the Academy of Athens since 2012.